Midco (formerly Midcontinent Communications) says the company is on track to deploy much faster DOCSIS 3.1-based cable broadband service in four or five markets before the end of the year. Speaking to Fierce Cable, MidCo CTO Jon Pederson said the company's ongoing trials are proceeding "as expected," and the company should have more specific details on which cities will be the first upgraded shortly.
"It s working really well," said. "I have a modem in my home, and I m testing pretty high speeds."
According to Pederson, the toughtest challenge right now is getting a hold of enough modems that support the new specification.
"We ve deployed DOCSIS 3.1 to several headends, and we have field trials in two of our largest cities, Pederson said. And it s going really well. The biggest challenge we see is that it s difficult to get modems. They re a little behind in terms of availability in comparison to the availability of equipment for the core CMTS network . But we expect in the next 30 to 60 days to get shipments of those."
DOCSIS 3.1 is likely to deliver a killing blow to many telcos that are already failing to keep pace with cable broadband. The nation's top broadband providers added 99% of the net broadband additions last quarter, thanks in large part to telco customers tired of 3-6 Mbps DSL speeds.
While Pederson isn't saying which markets will get the ultra-speedy service first, an announcement about the first public beta tests should come soon.
We hope to announce in probably the next couple of weeks a date when we start beta testing, and that s bringing customers that are on the waiting list to start testing," he said. "And we still hope to launch in a number of cities before the end of the year, and that would be a full launch."